Sen. Boxer to oppose Supreme Court nominee Roberts

[dissention]

Sen. Boxer to oppose Supreme Court nominee Roberts
Posted on Wed, Sep. 21, 2005
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., announced Wednesday that she will oppose the nomination of John Roberts to be Supreme Court chief justice.

"I said I could only vote for a nominee who would protect the rights and the freedoms of the people that I represent ... This nominee fails that bar," Boxer said on the Senate floor.

"I don't buy into this reasoning either: Let's support this nominee because the next one might be worse," she said.

The announcement by California's junior senator, a liberal who opposes many Bush nominees, was not a surprise. Still unknown is how the state's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, will vote when the Judiciary Committee convenes Thursday to decide on the nominee.

Feinstein, a moderate, is the only woman on the Judiciary Committee.

Boxer's announcement came as a number of other Democrats were revealing their decisions on the nominee to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, announced his endorsement for Roberts. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, liberal stalwart Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and former presidential candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts decided, like Boxer, to vote no.

Boxer said she was concerned about the views Roberts expressed in memos written while a lawyer in the Reagan administration, and about his failure to assist in the release of his writings from his years in the solicitor general's office under the first President Bush.

"With so many of our fundamental rights hanging in the balance, it is not good enough, in my view, to simply roll the dice, hoping a nominee will change his past views," Boxer said.